Design Thinking as Phenomenon

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Design Thinking as

a PhenomenonDesign Thinking as a Contemporary Phenomenon and

as an Object of Discussion

Masters thesis

Helsinki, May 2013

Aalto University

School of Art, Design and ArchitectureInternational Design Business Management

Supervisor: Pekka Korvenmaa, Ph.D.


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Copyright 2013 Aino Hanttu.

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AuthorAino Hanttu

Title of thesisDesign Thinking as a Phenomenon:

Design Thinking as a Contemporary Phenomenon and as an Object of Discussion

Degree programme International Design Business Management

Thesis supervisor Pekka Korvenmaa, Ph.D

Department Department of Design

Date 15.05.2013 Number of pages 60 Language English

Abstract

Design thinking is fundamentally about how designers think and what tools and methods they use in

their profession. During the past decade, design thinking has become a popular topic within design

and especially business communities. Business leaders and managers have adapted design thinking

as a part of their companies innovation process and the business community has given a new a-

vour to the term. Design thinking has become an exceedingly discussed phenomenon in businessand design-related media. This thesis aims to study how design thinking is understood in different

domains, why design thinking became a phenomenon and especially why it became so prominent

within the business and management community. The objective is also to discover how and why

design thinking became a fad. Furthermore the aim is to understand the possible affects of design

thinking phenomenon to the design community and domain.

A literature review was conducted for the thesis. The topic is based on instant history, therefore

sources used are mainly online based: online business and design journal articles and blog posts. In

addition to online sources, the literature review consists of books, journals and academia papers of

fundamental key thought leaders for the purpose of this thesis. In addition, a handful of design andbusiness professionals who deal with the term in their day-to-day profession were interviewed in or-

der to support the research and to understand the variation of opinions regarding design thinking.

It is discovered that design thinking became a contemporary phenomenon in the past decade and

that it became a fad between 2008 and 2011. At least two separate discussion discourses are recog-

nized, one in business domain and the other in design domain. It was found that the two discourses

discuss and understand design thinking in different ways: the design discourse sees design thinking

as a fundamental designer trait that mainly designers possess, when the business discourse under-

stands design thinking more as tools and methods that can be adapted by anyone. Also, it is discov-

ered that over time some of the key thought gures participating in the design thinking discussion

change their original opinion on the value of design thinking. Furthermore, the principal conclusion

is that design thinking phenomenon has enhanced the value of design for business and the general

awareness of design profession. Business leaders and managers have given a great deal of attention

to design tools and methods in order to create novel ideas and innovation within their companies.

In addition, the visibility of design in media has increased the awareness of what design profession

can hold in it and how design can enhance the value companies give to their customers with their

products and services.

Keywords Design Tinking, Design, Business, Design in Business, rend, Phenomenon


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Contents1. Introduction 61.1. Investigation background 71.2. Objectives of the study 81.3. Research approach and methods 92. Design thinking phenomenon 122.1. Literature review 132.1.1. Design discourse 15

2.1.2. Business and management discourse 18

2.2. Design thinking 222.2.1. Key features of design thinking 23

2.2.2. Creativity and design 25

2.2.3. Rapid prototyping 26

2.3.4. Optimism in design 26

2.2.6. Creative problem solving 28

2.3.7. Multidisciplinary teamwork 29

2.3.8. Empathy 29

2.2.9. Holistic thinking 30

2.3. Design thinking phenomenon within business domain 312.3.1. Why business adapted design thinking 34

3. Transformation within design disciplines 373.1. Fine line between service design, strategic design and design thinking 383.1.1. Service design 39

3.1.2. Strategic design 413.1.3. Merging design disciplines 41

3.1.4. Case study: IDEO 42

4. Contradictory design thinking 464.1. Design thinking as action 464.2. Lack of coherent meaning for the term 49

5. Questioning the phenomenon 545.1. Design thinking - something remarkably special? 555.2. Design thinking - a fad? 56

6. Conclusions 61

References 65

Interviews 69Interviewees 69Attachment 1: Interview with Marco Steinberg. 70

Attachment 2: Interview with Anne Stenros and Dirk Schelders. 92Attachment 3: Interview with Roger Martin. 103Attachment 4: Interview with Emiliano Chinchelli. 111


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1. Introduction

Design thinking is fundamentally about how designers think and what tools

and methods they use in their profession. During the past decade, design

thinking has become a popular topic of general discussion within design and

business communities. Business leaders and managers have adapted design

thinking as a part of their companies innovation process and the business

community has given a slightly different meaning to the term. Before the

phenomenon, design thinking was mainly studied by design researchers and

the discussion of it was related to design rather than to the business realm.

Even though design thinking has become an exceedingly discussed topic inbusiness- and design-related media, there is no common understanding on

how to describe it. Therefore this thesis aims to study how design thinking

is understood in domains such as design and business, why design thinking

became a phenomenon and especially why it became so popular within the

business and management community. The objective is to nd out why design

thinking became such a trendy topic, if it is a fad, and if so, why. Furthermore,

the aim is to understand the possible affects of design thinking phenomenonto the design community and domain.

A literature review was conducted for the thesis. The topic is based on instant

history, therefore sources used are mainly online based: online business and

design magazine articles and blog posts. In addition to online sources, the

literature review consists of books and academic papers of fundamental

key thought leaders for the purpose of this thesis. In addition, a handful ofdesign and business professionals who deal with the term in their day-to-day

profession were interviewed in order to understand the variation of opinions

on what design thinking is. In the nal chapter the key ndings of this thesis

will be conducted as conclusions.


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1.1. Investigation background

The term design thinking began to appear in general discussion in business

and management related media during the past decade. Business publications

such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Bloombergs Business Week

began to publish articles and online blog posts about something called design

thinking and how it will help companies to create value to the products and

services they offer for their customers. In the business and management realm,

the term design thinking is associated with the creation of organizational

and other intangible innovation such as service innovation. The process

is based on the methods and tools designers use in their profession whendesigning. When the term began to appear in the business- and management-

related media, design thinking was often presented as something novel and

revolutionary, creating a buzz around it.

However, design thinking is not a new term. It was used the rst time in

the 1980s when Peter G. Rowe published Design Thinking in 1987. In the

thesis Rowe studied the design process and intellectual activity of architects

designing. Before Rowe, many design researches studied the way designersthink and work, including what type of problems designers solve in their

profession.1This earlier academic design research and discussion has mainly

focused on the designers intellectual creative process and professional work,

whereas the general design thinking discussion over the past decade has

focused on the tools and methods designers use when designing and how

they can be brought to other elds of domain outside of design for various

purposes. This phenomenon has formed a few key thought leaders on designthinking such as Tim Brown, the Chief Executive Ofcer (CEO) of world

famous design consultancy IDEOand Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman School

of Management. Their key thoughts are that whatever you do, you should and

can think like a designer to create innovation and novel ideas.2

1 Simon, 1969; Rittel & Webber, 1973; Lawson, 1980; Schn, 1983; Buchanan, 1992

2 Brown, 2009; Kimbell, 2009; Martin, 2009; Lockwood et al., 2010


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The starting point for this thesis was a blog post by Venessa Wong in Business

Week online magazine in late 2009.3 In the article Wong wrote about how

businesses are adopting design thinking and how design thinking is taught

in design and business schools around the world. I began to wonder what is

design thinking about and started to collect information on it. The problem

was that I could not nd a general explanation on what design thinking

actually was. All the authors of articles and studies had different opinions of

what design thinking was and how it should be used, and for what purposes.

Bryan Lawson describes that the word design is used in everyday life but it

has particular meanings given by particular groups of people.4I believe that

design thinking can be assimilated to this: it has particular meanings given byparticular groups of people and this thesis aims to understand the different

meanings design thinking has to particular people.

1.2. Objectives of the study

Divided into six chapters, this thesis aims to illustrate the different meaningsgiven to the term design thinking and seek out the reasons behind the design

thinking phenomenon. In chapter two the focus is to understand the two

different design thinking discourses: design and business and how differently

they discuss design thinking. The literature review emphasizes on the earlier

research and publications on design thinking and what has been said about

design thinking before and after it became a phenomenon in the 2000s. In

chapter two the key focus is also on how business and management domainadapted design thinking and who are key thought leaders. In order to understand

the opinion differences between people with different backgrounds, a handful

of business and design experts were interviewed. The objective for the

interviews was to see if the interviewed professionals had very similar or very

3 Wong, 2009

4 Lawson, 2006


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different views on design thinking. The results will be described throughout

the thesis.

Chapter three is about design thinking in general; what are the key features

of it, gathered from the literature reviewed. In addition chapter three will

study how design thinking and some particular design thinking related design

disciplines have gone through a transformation. The relations between these

three will be studied in order to understand the similarities and differences.

A case study of the design consultancy IDEO will be presented for IDEOs

signicance for the phenomenon.

Chapter four focuses on the controversy of design thinking concept, term

and the phenomenon; critique will be presented. In chapter ve the aimis to understand if design thinking is a fad or has been a fad, and if it has

something special to offer. Chapter six concludes the thesis with conclusions.

Objectives of this study, listed:

1. To nd and understand reasons for the design thinking phenomenon

during the past decade:

Why design thinking became a popular topic of discussion during 2005to 2012.

Why design thinking became particularly trendy within the business

and management community.

2. Did design thinking become a fad and if so, why.

3. What are the affects of the design thinking phenomenon for the design

domain and community.

1.3. Research approach and methods

In this thesis, the research focus is towards international discussion of the

phenomenon of design thinking, based mainly in North America and Europe.

The chosen method of this study is a literature review on the topic but the


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main focus is on the general popular discussion. The popular discussion was

studied through articles, blog posts, online forums, academic studies and

books. The academic studies are chosen based on their signicance on the

formation of the term. For instance in the design domain earlier research

from the 1960s to 1990s play a fundamental role in how the term and concept

of design thinking has formed to what it is today. Also the more recent

research was chosen in order to compare the two discourses within the same

timeline. For the business and management discourse related literature review,

a signicant amount of business- and management-related articles and pieces

were reviewed, emphasizing in the time period from early 2005 to end of

2012. Particularly this period of time is where most of the contemporaryliterature and material is from regarding design thinking.

The focus of this thesis is not to collect all the existing denitions of design

thinking, but to better understand the reasons behind why the most used

denitions and features are particularly used for describing design thinking.

Therefore the literature was chosen mainly from the key thought leaders

and from authors who have been participating the key discussion actively

with their opinions, articles or in other ways in media (such as presentations,video interviews and writing blog posts). The design discourse related articles

are chosen from design publications such as Design Issues, Design Studies, Fast

Company Designand the more informal discussion, including blog posts from

Core77 and relevant personal blogs of design experts and professionals.

Particularly in these journals and publications design thinking has been

mentioned throughout the past decade and in design domain also before as

will be noticed in the literature review. The business- and management-relatedarticles were chosen for their active discussion regarding design thinking,

from publications such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Business

Week, Design Management Institute Review (DMI Review) and other relevant

sources such as personal blogs of the key people relevant to this thesis.

In addition to literature review, a series of interviews were conducted for

this thesis in order to understand if design and business professionals with


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different backgrounds have either very similar or very different opinions and

viewpoints on design thinking. I wanted to have at least a few interviews

because they give a direct opinion from the interviewee, and there is no

editors or reporters in between the interviewer and the interviewee. Two of

the interviewees were chosen by their activity and participation on the design

thinking discussion (Roger Martin and Anne Stenros). The other interviewees

were chosen for their professional background, meaning that they were experts

in their domain (Emiliano Chinchelli, Dirk Snelders and Marco Steinberg).

To have as many different points of views as possible, it did not matter if

they had or had not been participating the discussion. All interviewees were

already familiar with the term in some way. Interviewees were asked moreor less the same questions in order to understand the differences and/or

similarities within their answers. All ve interviews are found as attachments

of this thesis. Also two related discussions were conducted with Dan Hill and

Olof Schybergson prior to the recorded interviews.

To support the reviews and interviews, some social media research was

done to understand the design thinking phenomenon in a more holistic way.

I have used Google Trends search to support my ndings and to understandthe timeframe of design thinking as a trend. Also the iPhone application

Instagram was used in order to conduct image searches (by using the term

design thinking) to understand how in general the people understand the term

design thinking and how they use it.


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2. Design thinking phenomenon

It has been said that a designer thinks differently than an engineer, a

mathematician or an electrician. All the three mentioned require skills for

creative problem-solving, understanding of how different things relate to

each others, many times also out-of-the-box thinking in respected profession.

All these things are used to describe design thinking. If everyone can process

thoughts in a similar manner, then what makes people say that designers think

differently? According to design researcher Nigel Cross, design has its own

distinct things to know, ways of knowing them, and ways of nding out about

them.5And this is very much what design thinking is about: designers seemto have their own way of thinking and creative process, and they use tools

and methods special to them to support the process. The design thinking

phenomenon began when business and management related media started to

publish articles on how new ideas and innovation can be created by thinking

like designer and using the methods and tools designers use. This thesis aims

to study when and why business and management discourse got excited

about the designerly ways6of doing and thinking. A set of opinions of thedenition of the term and concept design thinking is presented, however all

existing denitions will not be presented, only the denitions given by the

literature review authors and people interviewed for this thesis. In the general

discussion and literature there is lacking a consistent denition of design

thinking and it is confusing as a term for the reason that the meaning and the

signicance of the term vary depending on who is discussing it. Individuals

with different backgrounds tend to have different perceptions on the topic.To give a holistic understanding on design thinking, the chapter is divided

into three parts: the chapter begins with a section where two discourses

will be presented in form of literature reviews. The second part presents

the key features and denitions of design thinking from the key gures in

5 Cross, 2007. 17

6 Cross, 2007


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the phenomenon. The last part of the chapter studies why business and

management community adapted design thinking.

2.1. Literature review

In order to understand the reasons behind the phenomenon, the term

design thinking should be claried: how it is discussed and perceived by

different authors, what does it mean and what were the reasons to initiate the

phenomenon. Since there are at least two separate discourses within the design

thinking phenomenon related discussion (one in the design community andthe other in business and management community7), they will be separated

into design discourse and business and management discourse as their own

parts of the literature review in order to understand the timeline and common

tone of voice of the two discourses (see image 1). The literature for this

thesis is chosen for its signicance for the topic, and by the signicance of

the author for the topic. The authors are also chosen for their activity and

participation on the discussion. Some authors are chosen for their frequentcoverage in design thinking related research, meaning that various researchers

of the topic refer to their work in their own studies. In the design discourse

literature review this type of authors were found easily. The literature review

covers discussion on design thinking from the 1960s when it rst began to

appear as a topic of discussion and studies in some form, but it is signicant

to note that Rowe used the term design thinking for the rst time in the 1980s

in his book Design Thinking.For the reason that the design thinking phenomenon began in the 2000s, the

literature used is mainly from the past decade. From the beginning of 2000s

in the design discourse the key gures in the design thinking discussion are

design researcher Cross and IDEOs CEO Tim Brown. Cross has studied

design thinking for several years and his thoughts are referred in many design

7 Johansson & Woodilla, 2010; Hassi & Laakso, 2011


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thinking related studies I have come across. Tim Brown is recognized in this

study as one of the key gures involved in the design thinking phenomenon,

as well as he has also been referred in the material I have studied for this

thesis. Brown has also been active in terms of speaking in public about design

thinking. In the business and management discourse, at least three main

supporters are recognized: Roger Martin, who was also interviewed for this

thesis, Helen Walters and Bruce Nussbaum. Roger Martin is seen as one of

the key gures for the phenomenon for his active participation in the general

discussion through articles in business and management related publications.

Helen Walters is the editor of the magazine Innovation and Design, formerly

known also a Business Week editor. Walters has participated and thriven thediscussion forward with her articles and blog posts. For the same reason the

Fast Company editor Bruce Nussbaum is thought to be one the key characters

in design thinking when it comes to the general popular discussion, in which

he has participated with his strong personal opinions on the topic. With

these key thought leaders (of design thinking), a variety of other meaningful

authors will be presented in the following sections, starting by presenting the

design discourse and then moving to the business and management discourse.

Image 1. The design thinking literature demographics from1969 to 2009, according to Johansson & Woodilla. 2011


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2.1.1. Design discourse

The literature reviewed for the literature review is mainly related to the term

design thinking. This means that the book, study, article or blog post is

somehow related to design thinking (headline, name, eld of study). Some

authors were signicant for their appearance in studies and research conducted

by design thinking related researchers.

The design discourse related articles chosen for this thesis are mainly from

academic and professional design journals highly recognized by the design

community such as Design Studies and Design Issues. Online magazines used

are Core77, Fast Company Design and various personal blogs. Blog posts andpersonal blogs are used in order to get a variety of opinions related to the

popular discussion. They were chosen by the signicance of the author to the

topic or by the signicance of the blog post to the topic.

The academic discussion of design thinking has been around for nearly

thirty years now8. Johansson & Woodilla refer to the design discourse way

of describing design thinking as designerly thinking and separate it from

the design thinking phenomenon started by the business and managerialdiscourse in the 2000s. They believe that the design discourse is more focused

on the designers professional practice and the theoretical framework of

understanding designers and characterizing them.9

In the design discourse the earliest reference to design thinking is by Simon.10

He describes problem solving and design as a part of the domain of professions

that are concerned with what ought to be (in stead of what is) in his bookThe

Sciences of the Articial in 1969. Simon believes that design is the creation ofthe articial and that a person is designing when an existing situation is been

changed (designed) to a preferred end result. Simon also emphasized in the

importance of the understanding of the design process.11

8 Johansson & Woodilla, 2011. 69

9 Johansson & Woodilla, 2011

10 Kimbell, 2011; Diethelm, 2012

11 Simon, 1969. 111-113


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Another important gure in the history of design thinking within the design

discourse is Schn who wrote how designers have a conversation with the

moment when designing, Schn emphasises on the way designers construct

the problems within the framework: meaning that the moment, materials and

situation affect on the solution generation.12

However, probably the most signicant milestone in the design discourse was

when Rowe published Design Thinkingin 1987. The signicance of this study

to the design thinking phenomena is in its history: Rowe was the rst one

to write about the designers way of thinking when designing by calling it

design thinking. Although his study gave much attention to the profession

of architecture, he spoke about designers and the study made applies to thedesign profession in general.

In the 1990s Richard Buchanan wrote about wicked problems in design

thinking in the design magazine Design Issues in 1992.13Even though Rittel and

Webber had already written about these wicked problems already in the 1960s

- 1970s14, Buchanans article somehow revolutionized the design (thinking)

discussion. Buchanan argued that design can be applied to everything (to any

area of human experience15) and that most of the problems that designersdeal with are the so-called wicked problems. Rittel also describes this type of

problems in the following way: class of social system problems which are ill-

formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients

and decision makers with conicting values, and where the ramications in

the whole system are thoroughly confusing.16Rittels description of wicked

problems accurately describes the kind of problems that designers really deal

with in daily work: designers try to nd creative and innovative solutions toproblems that do not yet have solutions. 17

Lawson published How Designers Think The Design Process Demystied in 1980,

12 Schn, 1983. 78-79

13 Buchanan, 1992. 5-21

14 Rittel & Webber, 1973. 155-169

15 Buchanan (2009, ed. Brody & Clark). 97

16 Churchman, 1967. 141-142

17 Cross, 2007. 27; Rowe, 1987. 40-41


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and even though Crosss research is published later, they have the same topic

emphasizing on how designer think and what is the design process. Lawson

observed the designers at their work and he studied the design education

at design and architect schools. Cross published his book Designerly Ways of

Knowing in 2007. Cross studies mainly the designers abilities and how designers

act and think differently. He emphasizes that the designers task is to not only

to solve problems but also to produce the solution18. Crosss approach to

design thinking is very similar to Lawsons approach but Lawson refers many

times to architects as designers, whereas Cross writes about designers with a

more generalized view. In Crosss latest book Design Thinkingin 2011, Cross

takes an even more precise approach to how designers think with a focus oninterdisciplinary design work. Lawson and Cross both believe that the design

ability is to some extend special and that now matter what design domain the

designer is working in, the design ability remains the same in all designers.19

Most of the authors mentioned agree that all human beings have natural

design ability but through design education, professional experiences, and

practices, some people become better in using this design ability.20

The design research done on design thinking stands apart from the researchdone on the same term in the past few years: before 2000s the research was

focused on reections on how designers practice design and think while

designing and the research was done mainly by design researchers. In the

research done after the 2000s the focus still remains on how designers think

and the tools and methods used but in addition, there is another focus on

how non-designers can learn from these methods, tools and thinking in

order to apply them to their own professional domain. The difference to theearlier research is that the research published in the past few years are not

done by design professionals but rather by people related to business and

management. Even though there are exceptions: Brown - with an industrial

design background - has been one of the most active spokespeople for

18 Cross, 2007. 23-24

19 Cross, 2007. 124

20 Lawson, 2006; Cross, 2007


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design thinking. Brown has his background in the design community, but

he approaches design thinking as a method and a tool for organizations and

business leaders to improve their business and to create innovations.21Brown

denes design thinking as the next level of design doing referring to the

traditional industrial design or graphic design - and suggesting that design

thinking is a new approach suitable for everyone to design organizational

changes, health care related services and client understanding22.

2.1.2. Business and management discourse

Apart from the design related literature, there are quite a few authors writing

about design thinking outside of the design domain. The tone of voice of this

discourse is different than how the design community and design researchers

approach design thinking. As design management researchers Hassi & Laakso

point out in their study, it seems that the management literature offers design

thinking as a cure to nearly every challenge in business23. In addition to Hassi

& Laakso, Johansson & Woodilla claim that the design thinking has becomea trendy term in the executive and management realm24. The business and

management discourse literature review is slightly different from the design

discourse literature review because the term has not been used very often, if

at all, before 2000s in the business and management context. For this reason,

the literature reviewed was collected mainly from business and management

related journals and magazines such as Business Week, Harvard Business

Review, Design Management Review and Fast Company. The articles werechosen by the signicance of the author to the topic or by the signicance of

the article or blog post to design thinking. In a similar manner as in the design

discourse literature review, additional material was used such as documentaries,

21 Brown, 2009

22 Brown, 2009. 3-8

23 Hassi & Laakso, 2011. 52

24 Johansson & Woodilla, 2011. 68; Kimbell, 2011; Tjendra, 2012


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video interview of the key gures for the topic and some personal blog posts

that are signicant for this topic in order to understand different opinions

and views on design thinking.

Kimbell suggests in her study that the strategy specialist Mintzberg was one

of the rst ones to bring out the value of design in business in 1990 when he

presented the ten schools of strategy; one of them being the school of design

with the approach that emphasizes the conscious activity of conceiving of

strategic alternatives25. However, as a term and as a concept, design thinking

began to appear in the management journals around the mid 2000s when

Boland and Collopy discussed the management practice and education in200426as well as Dunne and Martin in 200627. In the paper, Dunne and Martin

discussed design thinking and its affect on management education. Although

at the time Martin referred design thinking also as integrative thinking, he

basically meant the same thing.28In the same year, Borja de Mozota presented

a value model in design management that emphasises the signicance

of design and bringing the designers and managers closer to each others.

Borja de Mozotas main argument is that design is important in creatinginnovation and value for business 29. Borja de Mozota also suggested already

in 2006 that in 2005 there was a trend in favour of design in business and

the management community30. With Borja de Mozota, Nussbaum, key gure

in the contemporary design thinking discussion, wrote in 2005 in Business

Week that the emergence of China and India would force the American

and European (and Japanese) major corporations to rethink their corporate

strategies. He suggested in 2005 that, Recently non-designers have begunshowing greater interest in learning more about a eld (design) so closely

25 Kimbell, 2009. 2

26 Boland & Col lopy, 2004

27 Dunne & Martin, 2006

28 Dunne & Martin, 2006. 512-523

29 Borja de Mozota, 2006

30 Borja de Mozota, 2006. 44


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associated with innovation.31Now writing for Fast Companyand teaching as

a professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons The New School of Design,32

wrote formerly a great deal of articles for Business Week, and many of his

writings are also used as a part of research for this thesis. Interesting about

Nussbaum is that he was one of the spokespeople for design thinking and

then in 2011 he stated in an article that, Design thinking is dead and that it

was a fad.

Since 2006, Martin has also been the key gure and spokesperson of design

thinking in the business and management discourse. In 2007 Martin published

a book, The Opposable Mind,on integrative thinking (coming up with various,opposing ideas and being able to create better ideas building on top of the

earlier ideas) 33. In 2009, he wrote a book related to design thinking,The Design

of Business, in the same year as Brown published his book Change by Design.

In the interview for this thesis, Martin notes that they both knew about the

books they were writing at the time and he thought, They are complimentary

to one another. In the interview Martin also mentioned that he felt that

The Design Of Businesswas a continuation to his rst book, In that book Isaid that when faced with an unpleasant either/or choice, integrative thinkers

come up with a better solution. And that is a creative act. I felt that it was

important for me to explain more about that creative act of coming up with

something new that does not now exist. Martin suggests that abductive

reasoning (the logic of what might be) and integrative thinking are a part of

design thinking. Martin believes that managers and business leaders should

get familiar with design methods and the designerly way of thinking in orderto create innovation and novel ideas.

The President of Design Management Institute Lockwood is in the similar

lines with Martin. Lockwood edited a book called Design Thinking in 2010.

31 Nussbaum, 2005

32 BusinessWeek, 2013. http://www.fastcodesign.com/users/bruce-nussbaum Accessed

11.10.2013

33 Martin, 2009; Hassi & Laakso, 2011. 52-62


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Lockwood implies that design thinking is something where right brain thinking

is combined equally with left-brain thinking. He claims that Businesses need

to be ambidextrous: think from both sides. Lockwood believes that design

thinking is the perfect way of working. Apart from Martin, Lockwood writes

about integrative thinking. In Lockwoods opinion, design thinking has a few

fundamental methods, which are collaboration, embedding diverse points of

view and integrative thinking. 34Lockwood has gathered almost thirty people

from management and design domains to write about design thinking and its

levels and benets. In his book, design thinking is connected to topics such as

business design, design management, brands and innovation, service design

and customer experience design.

Helen Walters, the editor of Innovation and Design, has written various articles

on design thinking during the more recent years and she (with Nussbaum)

has brought design thinking to the readers of Business Week, as a part of

the innovation discussion. In 2009, Walters wrote about why design thinking

matters and mentioned also Martin as one of the key gures in the design

thinking discussion.35Walters was chosen for the literature review especiallyfor the fact that around 2009 she wrote pro-design thinking blog posts and

articles, and in 2010-2011 she changed her tone of voice to more critical

when writing about design thinking.

In the recent years a few rather signicant academic papers have been written

by Aalto University management researchers Hassi & Laakso, who based their

research also on Johanssons & Woodillas, professors in design management

at the University of Gothenburg, research on design thinking. Johansson& Woodilla point out that there are at least two major discourses in design

thinking: the academic and the managerial discourse. The managerial discourse

is closely related to the creation of innovation and is a way for managers to

understand design.36Hassi & Laakso on the other hand simplied the two

34 Lockwood et al., 2010. Ix-x

35 Walters, 2009



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discourses to design discourse and to management discourse 37, and also their

way of separation of these groups is used also in this thesis, but in stead

of managerial discourse I prefer to use business and managerial discourse; I

believe design thinking has widen from the management level to other domains

of business, for example to the business schools. In addition to these studies,

also Kimbell is one of the key design thinking researchers. She believes design

thinking can be discussed in a different manner, or at least called in a different

way (design-as-practice and design-in-practice), As an alternative to design

thinking, the pairing of design-as-practice and designs-in-practice moves the

unit of analysis away from the individual designer or user, or the organization,

to a wider frame which refocuses the research agenda. 38

2.2. Design thinking

As noticed in the literature review, there is a great a deal of people discussing

it and giving the opinion about it publicly. Regardless of the differences inopinions, Design thinking has been used for characterizing what individual

designers know, and how they approach and make sense of their work, as well

as how they actually do it, Kimbell explains39. In short, design thinking is

what designers do and how they think when designing.

There are some certain attributes that design thinking is thought to consist

of, and they will be presented in this chapter. These attributes apply mainly

to what attributes design thinking phenomenon has brought out; what arethe most common features mentioned in the literature and media. These

attributes are for instance the ability to visualize ideas, multidisciplinary

teamwork, problem solving (solving ill-dened problems), rapid prototyping

and empathy for end-users. In the following text the focus is on dening

37 Hassi & Laakso, 2011

38 Kimbell, 2009

39 Kimbell, 2011


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what are the key features of design thinking from different points of view.

The methods of design thinking are important to understand, since no design

thinking exists without the doing. Designers are claimed to learn by doing and

therefore the thinking evolves while doing and vice versa.40What appear to be

the key features of design thinking are gathered from the literature reviewed

and from the interviews as short summaries in the following pages.

2.2.1. Key features of design thinking

As mentioned already, there are at least two design thinking discourses.Hence the opinions and denitions of design thinking vary depending on

the discourse and the person discussing it. The business and management

discourse often describe design thinking as a tool and a methodology for

innovation and creation of novel ideas. It is described as sort of complementary

of analytical thinking for managers and business leaders and it can be applied

to anything.41Lockwood describes design thinking as, Essentially a human-

centred innovation process that emphasizes observation, fast learning,visualization of ideas, rapid prototyping, and concurrent business analysis,

which ultimately inuences innovation and business strategy. The objective is

to involve consumers, designers, and businesspeople in an integrative process,

which can be applied to product, service, or even business design.42Lockwood

together with Cooper and Junginger, emphasizes that design thinking is not

a new concept or practice and that, It has been with and around us ever

since there was design, conscious or unconscious. But some of the currentinterpretations offer new nuances, and that does have an impact on how we

practise and theorize about design. Lockwood, Cooper & Junginger also

describe design thinking as a key activity.43

40 Lockwood et a l., 2010. 59-60

41 Kimbell, 2009

42 Lockwood, ed. 2010

43 Lockwood, ed. 2010


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Brown is sort of in the middle of the two discourses, because he emphasizes

much also on business when describing and discussing design thinking. The

key thought of Brown is to combine business, technology and design. Design

thinking plays a relevant role in doing this. Brown describes design thinking

in the following way:

Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest

to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints

of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what

is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the

products we enjoy today.Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people

who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater

range of problems.

Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional

problem-solving practises. It is not only human-centred; it is deeply human in and of itself .

Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas

that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media otherthan words or symbols.44

One of the interviewees, Stenros, the design director of Kone, believes that

the concept of design thinking reects any kind of creative approach in a

systemic way. Cross on the other hand believes that design thinking is built

in everyone, it is Inherent within human cognition and a key part of what

makes people human.45

In the following section the key attributes of design thinking (especially within

the design thinking phenomenon) are presented.

44 Brown, 2009

45 Cross, 2011


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2.2.2. Creativity and design

In order to explain what design thinking is, the term creativity has to be

understood at least until some extend because design activity is often

referred as something creative. Cross emphasizes that creativity is, Widely

regarded as an essential element in design thinking46. Fundamentally many

of the methods designers use, can be described as creative. Sketching and

prototyping the ideas can be used as an example: in order to get the idea

out of the head, the designer has to visualize it. So sketching is a form of

visualization: trying out different options and placing them side-to-side on

the paper or on the computer screen. Sketching is also a thinking process: thedesigner visualizes the idea in his or her mind, then makes decisions on which

of the ideas seem feasible. Then by looking close enough what the designer

had in mind the best idea is selected for further development.

Everyone does this in a way in everyday life. All people are creative up to some

extend, and because they make decisions and evaluate them continuously, and

someone could claim that everyone is a designer, as Victor Papanek stated

in the 1980s47. All people are reasoning in their everyday routines: they solveproblems and try to make sense of events around them. It is usual for people

to imagine how things could be if they would do something differently. But

here lays the difference with non-designers and designers: not everybody

thinks about the what-could-happen-if scenarios when making decisions.

This is what designers do especially in their professional design work. They

think about what would happen if they try things in another way, or what

would happen if they combine various things as one, and then they thinkabout the consequences following these created combinations. Lawson notes

that designers have to continuously direct their thought process into a certain

direction, trying to nd the solution for a problem. 48 Non-designers on the

other hand do not do this normally consciously; they let their mind wonder

46 Cross, 2007. 107

47 Papanek, 1984. 3

48 Lawson, 2006. 141


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more freely. In some professions the thought process works in a similar way as

the designers process (for example consultants in different areas of expertise

have to try to nd a solution for the same type of problems as the designers

do). Designers will take the thinking to the prototyping and iteration phase.

2.2.3. Rapid prototyping

For industrial designers the most important thing is to prototype and to iterate

their ideas. In the manufacturing industry, prototyping saves resources - time

and money - because the nal product has been proved to work many timesbefore the mass production phase. During the last decade the meaning of

prototyping has began to be used in domains outside of design, but also to

elds of design which did not use prototyping as a method before. Different

prototyping methods are now used for practically everything. In service design

there are various methods for service prototyping: storytelling, creating the

service with Legos and trying it in a game-like way. Services can be quickly

prototyped in place with using whatever in hand and acting it out. Digitaldesign (web design, mobile application design) has become important domain

in design; their prototypes can be created from the visualized screens and just

by inserting them as images in a phone. There are companies such asAppGyver49

and Buzztouch50 dedicating in creating this type of rapid prototyping method,

but instead of sending images to phone, they use quick coding to test the

phone applications directly in the phone.

2.3.4. Optimism in design

Creativity is not only about sketching and prototyping. Thomas Alva Edison

49 AppGyver 2013. http://www.appgyver.com Accessed 30.03.2013

50 Buzztouch 2013. http://www.buzztouch.com Accessed 30.03.2013


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once said, that genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent

perspiration. The ultimate idea behind being creative in design business is to

create something original and or novel. The best idea does not often come as

a eureka moment for designers as many people think, but actually designers

work hard to get to the nal - best idea - which will be created into a product

or a service in the end.51

Most of the designers seem to have an optimistic approach when designing

even if they sometimes struggle to be productive. Cross explains that the

designers appear to be highly motivated and willing to take risks in their

professional work. This includes a certain type of self-condence of course;

working under a pressure to come up with novel ideas requires optimism anddetermination. 52

2.3.5. Imagination

Some design researchers have come to a conclusion that most of the designers

posses particular personality characteristics. Apart from self-condence andoptimism, designers are also very imaginative and have a certain type of

intelligence, which cannot be perceived only through design education.53 It

is already in the persons traits.54 Lawson borrows from one the forerunners

of cognitive psychology, Frederic Bartlett in referring to imagination also as

adventurous thinking 55. Imagination and creativity go hand-in-hand together

but creativity is more about imagining what could be and nding ways to

conceive it whereas imagination is more about fantasising and daydreamingabout what could happen even thought it is not possible.

51 Lawson, 2006. 145- 146

52 Cross, 2011. 68-70

53 Cross, 2007 & 2011, Lawson, 2006

54 Lawson, 2006. 151- 153

55 Lawson, 2006. 141


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2.2.6. Creative problem solving

Creativity plays an important role in problem solving in design work. As

earlier mentioned, there is something called ill-dened or wicked problems

that the designers have to deal with in their professional work. Practically all

design thinking related authors refer in some way to these wicked problems.

Especially in the management discourse one of the fundamental features in

design thinking is especially the designers ability to solve complex problems

that do not have one right solution but multiple possible good solutions.56

The ill-dened or wicked problems are more and more common in different

elds of business and many design consultancies have moved their eldof expertise to the direction of service design to tackle these complicated

problems, which cannot be always resolved with traditional design methods.

Cross explains that the designers take a broad systems approach to the

problem, then they frame the problem in a different and even personal way.57This means that when designers are brought up with a problem, they tend

to rst reframe and simplify the problem. Then they try to see the problem

from different perspectives, from the users point of view and as well as fromtheir clients - which usually is the company providing the service or product

to the end-user- point of view. It takes imagination and creativity to try to ask

the right questions from different perspectives. Perhaps for this reason the

management and non-designer community has taken a great deal of interest

in design because the ill-dened problems are something that can be solved

better with multidisciplinary team work and hence there is no need to be a

designer to tackle the problems when working together with designers.

56 Brown, 2009, Martin 2009, Lockwood et al. 2010

57 Cross, 2011. 75


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2.3.7. Multidisciplinary teamwork

As mentioned in the previous section, teamwork is held as one of the core

features of design thinking. This means that teamwork is not only teamwork

between designers but it is multidisciplinary teamwork, where every team

member gives their distinctive opinion and perspective through their own

area of expertise. As Brown mentions, teams have always been around but

for design thinking the special ingredient is the fact that each team member

represent different eld of expertise, from graphic design to human sciences

and civil engineering. 58 Many design thinking spokespersons have an idealistic

thought of business leaders and managers becoming designers and vice versawhen they are put in a team together to build a product or a service.59 For

this reason there are now many design and business schools offering this type

of multidisciplinary approach. For example the Stanford Institute of Design

at Stanford University was founded in the School of Engineering in 2005 to

become the design thinking school that fosters creativity and t-shaped people

who can deal with all sorts of projects beyond the typical design projects.60

2.3.8. Empathy

From design and management discourse, many people mention the word

empathy when describing design thinking. It is obvious that designers do have

some sort of emotional intelligence and empathy for the people they design

for. Without empathy designers probably would not understand to whom theyare designing for and what kind of goods and services or features the user

needs. However designers empathy is not always an evident characteristic.

One of the interviewees for this thesis emphasized it as a trait for a good

designer, but did not consider it as a key characteristic for a designer. Whether

58 Brown, 2009. 26

59 Brown, 2009, Martin 2009, Lockwood et al. 2010

60 Stanford Institute of Design: http://dschool.stanford.edu/about/ Accessed 15.01.2013


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a good or intermediate designer, designers do seem to be more empathic than

non-designers. Since a ten-year-old girl is different from a designer male of

35 years, it is obvious that designers have to do user research to understand

the users needs. The methods used are already somehow thriving towards a

more empathic approach. Getting to know the cultural background of the

user, following the users behaviour in certain situations and understanding

how the user feels when going through something, for example when

being in a hospital. Designers observe and take notes and base their design

approach on the observations. Rather than asking the users what they want

but understanding the value for the user is substantial and requires empathy

more than anything.61

2.2.9. Holistic thinking

From observing the user, the designer needs to move rapidly and effortlessly

to do detailed design. To a greater extend the design work is also about

seeing the big picture. Holistic thinking is something that many authorsfrom the management and business discourse seem to see as a key feature

in design thinking.62 Holistic thinking is about seeing bigger entities and

about understanding all possible stakeholders involved when it comes to a

design project. It is not enough to just understand the end-user; it is about

understanding all touch points from the fuzzy-front end to design strategies

and service providers who deal with the end-user.

61 Stanford Institute of Design: http://dschool.stanford.edu/about/ Accessed 15.01.2013

62 Brown, 2009; Martin, 2009, Lockwood et al., 2010


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2.3. Design thinking phenomenon within business

domain

After mid 2000s, a buzz came across in the business and management realm

about design thinking. Both Brown and Martin published their books on the

topic in 2009, and later in the same year there were many notable articles in

business related journals (see image 2 and 3). The Google Trends search63

shows that the Google search for term design thinking was steadily growing

from the beginning of 2004 until the beginning of 2013. In 2009 there were

two striking peaks: few days after Browns book was released in May and few

days after Martins book was released in October (see image 2). The third peakis around November 2009 when the Aspen Design Summit was organized in

Colorado, US. The list of participants was truly noteworthy64: Brown, Jocelyn

Wyatt, Walters, members of world famous design agency frog, editor from

Core7765.

In March 2010 the business journal The Economist organized a conference

called the The Big Rethink where design was given a great deal of attention;

more than half of the sessions and presentations were related to design.Roberto Verganti, known business and innovation author gave a presentation

on design driven innovation, Richard Gillies from Marks & Spencer talked

about Marks & Spencers business design and there were many workshops

organized for the participants in order to work on challenging, hand-on-

tasks, participants gain tools to nd new solutions to their biggest business

challenges66.

63 Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=design%20

thinking&date=1%2F2008%2024m&cmpt=q Accessed 12.03.2013

64 http://winterhouse.com/aspen/ Accessed 12.03.2013

65 Core 77, 2013. http://www.core77.com

66 The Economist Conferences, http://www.economistconferences.co.uk/redesigningbusiness/

programme2010 Accessed 29.04.2013


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Image 2. Timeline of some of the meaningful (for this thesis)

business domain related articles, blog posts and books on

design thinking from the year 2006 to 2011.


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Image 3. Timeline of some of the meaningful (for this

thesis) design and design research related articles, blog posts

and books on design thinking from the year 2006 to 2011.


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Business schools, managers and business leaders have adopted design

thinking in their business curriculum. Dunne and Martin argued in 2006 that

the management press had noticed the potential of design for approaching

management67. During the past decade business managers, leaders and

students have been enthusiastically gathering sticky notes on the walls of

meeting rooms and class rooms in various courses, workshops and masters

programs that are now organized for business professionals, MBA and other

business students. 68In this chapter the focus is to study why design thinking

became so popular within the business and management domains and what

benets design thinking can provide them.

2.3.1. Why business adapted design thinking

Applying design approach to management practise does not seem to be a bad

idea: it could enable innovation, organizational change and growth. 69 The

way of working not only in the design domain - appears to be changing in

the world: companies hire professionals with different backgrounds to worktogether in the same project and consumers are invited to create the products

and services together with designers.

Design discipline has expanded from graphic design, architecture and

industrial design (among other design disciplines) to designing experiences,

strategies and even organizations. The focus is more in the user and creating

value to all the stakeholders around a product or a service.70The user is the

designer71

.In business domain, the way of thinking is different from the fast-forward

going, iterative design way of thinking and doing. The world is changing

67 Dunne & Martin, 2006. 512

68 Silverman & Korn, 2012


70 de Bono, 2003; Johansson & Woodilla, 2009

71 Kimbell, 2009


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from an industrial society to a knowledge society, as Dorst summarizes. The

problems we have today are complex and ill-dened and require creative

solutions.72Martin describes that a traditional rm does not see the quantity

of projects they have; they see an ongoing task, which has no beginning or

end, as separate projects have. The result is often expensive for the rm and

might result people working inefciently.73In a design rm the pace is fast,

and designers count on quick prototyping and failing fast in order to try again

another solution.74The designers think of the possible solutions a problem

might have.75 One characteristic the design professionals appear to have is

that they cope with uncertainty well. It has been suggested that business

managers can learn from design professionals in order to at least dene aproblem even when there is no certain solution in sight.76Patrick Whitney

emphasized at the Rotman Business Design Conferencein 2005 that the power of

design thinking should be separated from the crafting of things to apply to all

type of issues on a global scale. And exactly this is what has happened during

the past decade. Designers now work together with professionals from other

elds of expertise in order to create services and strategies that solve complex

problems.Companies in different areas of expertise nd design thinking methodology

useful for their organization or business. In the world today the mindset

appears to be moving to a different way of working, whether it is because

of the economical situation in the world or side affects of technology or just

plain trend cycle in methods and processes in organizations, which seem to

change from time to time. Now is the moment of co-creation (developing

and creation of value to customers created together with the customers, orend-users)77and collaboration: getting hands dirty together, after a period

of individualism the working community has had during the past decade or

72 Dorst, 2004

73 Dunne & Martin, 2006. 513

74 Cross, 2007


76 Lester, Piore & Malek, 1998

77 Cruz-Valdivieso et al. 2009. 3


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two. Perhaps the overwhelming amount of technology and information that

surrounds people is affecting them so that the preferred work method is to

work in a team instead of working solo. Design thinking is all about teaming

up and nding the right kind of person to complete a team.

One reason for business adapting design thinking might be that the business

community and especially education was lacking certain type of people;

Dunne for example argued in 2006 that MBA programs were criticized, For

their lack of relevance to practitioners, the values they impart to students,

and their teaching methods78. Dunne and Martin imply that around 2006

the management education was going through change; the research produced

by the business schools was not relevant for the business practitioner. Thetypical MBA programs were not sufcient in training managers who can

manage.79 In 2013, this seems to have changed. The MBA programs now

have interdisciplinary teamwork, co-creation and fast prototyping within their

curriculum, among other things such as critical thinking.80

78 Dunne & Martin, 2006. 512


80 Korn & Silverman, 2012


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3. Transformation within design disciplines

The design industry has changed remarkably during the past decade. What

used to be graphic design is now called visual design. What used to be

industrial design is now divided into service design (intangible) and product

design (tangible), and even to experience design (intangible and tangible).

There are new terms and what seem to be also new disciplines in design. The

transformation from tangible product development to intangible service and

strategic design began during the 2000s and now many designers work as

consultants with professionals from other elds of domain to solve complex

problems and even to create business models for companies and product lines.Kelley and VanPatter propose that designers have become the combining

factor for multidisciplinary teams, which are now formed for all sorts of

projects across different domains.81

The transformation of the design industry (to what it is now) began over

ten years ago. Julier suggests that during 1980s and 1990s the design practise

became more diverse, causing the designers to work alongside with marketing-

related sectors with the growing dominance of the brand. According toJulier, the changes in the economy and commerce during those two decades

changed the creative industry. He proposes that graphic design with interior

design took over some domains of industrial design.82 However, the design

profession moving closer to business related design problems is rather new;

Kimbell emphasises that the peculiar aspect of design thinking is that it is

adopted by the managerial discourse, and especially by the business schools83

. Strategic design and service design are also adopted as part of businessdesign and organizations, and to some extend, they are more familiar terms

to people than the term design thinking. To understand the transformation

happened in the recent decade in different design disciplines, these two terms

need to be explained more thoroughly because they are closely related to

81 Kelley & VanPatter, 2005

82 Julier, 2000. 27

83 Kimbell, 2011. 287


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design thinking and partly also part of it. Particularly these terms seem to be

something the interviewees had difculties in distinguishing them from each

others and from design thinking. The interviewees were asked to explain

with their own words the terms service design, strategic design and design

thinking, and they gave similar type of explanations to all of them. When

asking the interviewees what were the differences between the terms, they all

paused and had to think about it for a moment, but the answers were vague.

Based on the interviews it seemed that these three terms are very close to

each others and they difcult to distinguish.

3.1. Fine line between service design, strategic design

and design thinking

Service design, strategic design and design thinking all use similar type of

tools and methods, and they all are used for complex purposes, for example

problem solving for public health care issues. Design agencies IDEO and frogboth do health related projects using methods and approaches from different

disciplines to solve health care problems, sometimes even without any tangible

products as outcome. 8485 In service design, the methods are mainly related

to the user-led design approach: acting out, guring the service touch-points,

storytelling and prototyping.86 In strategic design, the aim is to visualize and

understand the architecture of problems, as the Finnish Innovation Fund

Sitra emphasizes in their introduction.87

The methods for strategic designare user research, or user understanding, prototyping and systems mapping

and thinking, meaning that the focus is on what is causing something and

84 IDEO, Project Carrot. 2009. http://www.ideo.com/work/project-carrot/ Accessed 30.03.2013

85 Frog, Project M. http://www.frogdesign.com/work/project-m.html Accessed 30.03.2013

86 Stickdorn & Schneider, 2010

87 http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/pages/what-is-strategic-design Accessed 30.03.2013


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the designers have to try to ask the right questions.88 The methods in both

service and strategic design sound very similar to the methods and tools used

in design thinking, and therefore drawing the distinguishing line between them

becomes difcult. In the following pages the intention is to try to explain the

difference between these three terms.

3.1.1. Service design

The term service design is rather new in the design domain; just like design

thinking in the context it is now used in. In the 1980s service design wasconsidered as a part of marketing discipline, and it was related to consumer

behaviour and the services around the consumer experience. Shostack

mentioned the words service and design the rst time together in 1984 in an

article in the Harvard Business Review. 89 In 1991 Michael Erlhoff and Birgit

Mager brought service design and research in the curriculum of the Kln

International School of Design(KISD) in the University of Applied Sciences in

Cologne, Germany.90 In 2002 IDEO added service design as a part of theiroffering.91

Few years later in 2004 service design began to be part of the design education

in design schools more broadly. Stefan Moritz, who is thought to be one of

the pioneers of service design in the design domain, wrote in 2005 that design

disciplines were melting and schools and companies were recognizing a need

and potential of a new approach in the design practise. He emphasizes that the

Cologne design school was offering a multidisciplinary course across thirteendifferent areas of design. Moritz suggested that the design would move

into the direction of multidisciplinary projects to develop holistic concepts.

88 Boyer, Cook & Steinberg. 2011. 15-16

89 Shostack, 1984

90 Moritz, 2005. 66

91 IDEO 2013. http://www.ideo.com


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92Moritz was denitely right about this and describing the future of design

in 2005: the design projects have changed quite notably and many designers

now work with multidisciplinary teams tackling with complex problems.

Service design however does not only consist of multidisciplinary teamwork

for a client, but also working with the client to co-create the user experience.

Service design is about designing the experience around the product or the

offering. Moritz describes that it is, About understanding client, organization

& market, develop ideas and translating them into feasible solutions and to

help implementing them93. In a way, service design could be described as

process design94.

The British Design Council describes a service design project as, A strategicproject which uses design techniques thorough client research, collaborative

ideas generation and early stage prototyping and testing to deliver services

that are built around the real needs of clients, that simplify complex problems

and deliver solutions that are future focused and cost conscious95. Also Marc

Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider describe that service design approach refers

to the design process rather than to the actual outcome of it96. Stickdorn &

Schneider give examples of service design outcomes such as organizationalstructures, operation processes and service experiences. Stickdorn & Schneider

emphasize that service design is, above all, an interdisciplinary approach,

combining the different methods and tools from several different disciplines97. The methods and tools for designing services vary depending on the

project. Some of the more used methods and tools are mind mapping, service

touch-points, creating user personas, user interviews, service blueprints and

quick service prototyping.98

92 Moritz 2005. 32

93 Moritz, 2005. 38-42

94 Interview with Stenros & Snelders 2012

95 The British Design Council, 2011

96 Stickdorn & Schneider, 2010. 14

97 Stickdorn & Schneider, 2010. 29

98 Moritz, 2005. 122-146


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3.1.2. Strategic design

Strategy has a long history that originates from military and economics and it is

known as a discourse within the management discourse 99. Explaining strategic

design is not easy. I encountered similar problems when searching for a simple

description for the term strategic design and for the term design thinking.

Strategic design as a term appears to be as vague as design thinking. Brian

Ling, design director at the design agency Design Sojourn, describes strategic

design as, A process that takes a very holistic and multi-disciplinary approach

to achieving design solutions. In other words, strategic design captures all

aspects of a products requirements (consumer needs, marketing and businessplans, design language, brand identity etc.) and then uses these requirements

to inuence the nal design solution.100 One of the interviewees, the director

of strategic design at Sitra, Marco Steinberg, describes that strategic design

is about bringing design tools to decision-making in order to form the right

questions. 101 Summarizing these two views on strategic design, it appears to

be a process that uses design tools.

3.1.3. Merging design disciplines

Even if the terminology in design changes, new terms, design buzzwords

and disciplines come along; the design methods seem to stay consistent

throughout time. The problem in dening the difference between design

thinking, service design and strategic design appears to lie somewhere inwhat type of outcome the project aims for. All three domains have similar

type of tools and methods; in all of them the focus is on multidisciplinary

teamwork, dening and nding the right questions, and visualizing them.

However there is a difference between service design with strategic design


100 Ling, 2009

101 Interview with Steinberg, 2012


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and design thinking; the last two mentioned are often linked more closely

to innovation than service design. Johansson & Woodilla for instance write

about the merger of strategy, design thinking and innovation, leaving service

design completely out of the framework.102Perhaps this is because in service

design the nal outcome is usually more focused on the end-user experience,

when in strategic design the nal outcome is related to business management.

In design thinking - as understood in the business and management discourse

- anyone can think like a designer in order to create practically anything: the

nal focus could be anything from user experience to innovative product

solutions. As Brown describes, Thinking like a designer can transform the

way you develop products, services, processes- and even strategy103. All threedomains are closely related to business, and can be used as tools and processes

for creating innovation and customer value. Design consultancy IDEO is a

good example of how service design, strategic design and design thinking

are used in different type of projects. IDEO plays a key role in the design

thinking phenomenon and links many key gures (Brown, Martin, David

Kelley), things and ideas together. Therefore a case study on IDEO will be

presented more throughout in the following section.

3.1.4. Case study: IDEO

IDEOs work has changed the industrial design and design consultancy

industry in the past decade. Through an extremely human-centric design

approach, IDEO has moved from product focused design to a service baseddesign work. IDEO became widely known internationally for their four-day

shopping cart project in 1999, aired in an episode of the TV channelABCs

late-night news show Nightline104. In the program IDEOs multidisciplinary

team redesigned a shopping cart in a very fast speed using methods of


103 Brown, 2008

104 IDEO, 2013. http://www.ideo.com/work/shopping-cart-concept Accessed 14.11.2012


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brainstorming, user research on site and rapid prototyping to create a new

type of shopping cart that serves the grocery store clients and staff better.

The actual product was not a success, but the working methods of IDEO

became widely recognized and the company became very famous after this

video. The methods and thinking used in the shopping cart project are now

thought to be part of the design thinking methods (multidisciplinary team

work, brainstorming, empathy towards users and rapid prototyping). Needles

to say, IDEO has a special part in the design thinking phenomenon.

When interviewing Roger Martin for this thesis, he mentioned that in 2003

he was having lunch with Brown. They had been discussing the offering ofIDEO for their clients and Brown had been wondering what to do with the

clients who come to them asking for problem-solving - consulting - in stead

of product design which had been IDEOs main offering before. Martin

emphasized that they left the lunch meeting with both pondering this new

type of design offering, or design thinking, what the clients were actually

asking from IDEO: to solve problems with the designer mind-set.105

In Martins opinion the design thinking discussion (within the context it isunderstood at the moment) started from a lunch date with Brown, and even

though it would have not started there, IDEO still posses a great deal in the

discussion: Brown, for example, writes an online blog called Design thinking106

since August 2008 and he wrote a book on the topic, not to mention Browns

various presentations on design thinking around the world.

The IDEO we know today was founded in 1991 by a merger of three designagencies in Palo Alto, California (US). The key gures of IDEO were then

David Kelley, Bill Moggridge and Mike Nuttall, who were the original founders

of the merged design agencies.107 Of these three persons David Kelley is

105 Interview with Martin, 2012

106 Tim Browns blog: http://designthinking.ideo.com/

107 ttp://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Lessons_from_innovations_front_lines_An_interview_with_

IDEOs_CEO_2185 Accessed 28.03.2013


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especially interesting character in IDEO history. He originally founded the

IDEO Product Developmentin 1978, and he was the CEO of IDEO until Tim

Brown took that position in 2000.108Like Brown, Kelley is also one of the

key inuencers in the design thinking discussion. When Hasso Plattner co-

founded the d.school in 2004, Kelley was there to lead the creation.109 The

d.school was a trial for bringing engineers, designers, business people and

other professionals from different elds of expertise together to ideate and

solve problems together. The schools brochure explains how the school

helps to create t-shaped students who bring the skills learned at their own

eld of study to tackle bigger problems with an interdisciplinary team of

people. The school emphasizes that they try to create innovators, not singleinnovations, by using design thinking process as the backbone of the learning

experience.110After the d.school opened its doors in 2005, it created a buzz

in the design and in the business community. Much similar type of schools

and programs began to appear after d.schools opening, and even still recently,

in 2012 the Wall Street Journalwrote how business schools are adapting the

design (thinking) process based learning to their curriculum to solve complex

problems. The Wall Street Journal article mentions also that not all thinkof only good things about the design thinking based learning. The article

mentions Peter Merholz, vice president of user experience at online database

start-up Inection LLC, of Redwood City in California, who comments

that the design thinking term can be used for basically everything as good

marketing because it is vague enough.111

This is not the rst time to hear such comment. There are non-believers

of design thinking, people who say that IDEO began to sell the term design

108 Steelcase Inc. press release: http://ir.steelcase.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=371986

Accessed 28.03.2013

109 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303506404577446832178537716.html

Accessed 28.03.2013

110 The d.school fact sheet. http://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/dschool-

fact-sheet-2012.pdf Accessed 28.03.2013

111 Wall Street Journal, 07.06.2012. Accessed 28.3.2013

http://online.wsj.com/art icle/SB10001424052702303506404577446832178537716.html


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thinking in order to sell their services to their clients and prospect clients

outside of the usual product development client companies, for example in

healthcare and public services. One of the interviewees even said that they

came up with design thinking to compete with other design agencies doing

product development and product design by broadening their service offering,

but also to compete with Asian design agencies.

Some of the interviewees suggested that the design thinking buzz was a way

to try to force the design competency for Western (or American) design

consultancies like IDEO, because the Asian design competence, especially in

China, is beginning to be more competitive with the Western design agencies.

Some interviewees emphasized that various good design schools exist inAsia, which are also building their competence on multidisciplinary teamwork

and design thinking methods. Until the recent years, China was competing

with low manufacturing prices but now the Chinese design work itself is

getting strongly competitive with the Western design business. Still, some of

the interviewees were not completely agreeing with this claim, one of the

interviewees mentioned that the Asian design agencies and schools could not

compete with the Western design agencies and schools, but he did not explainfurther why or how.


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4. Contradictory design thinking

The design community has not adapted the term design thinking as well as

the business and management community. Between the 1970s and present

moment, design researches and variety of design community members have

researched and discussed design creativity, the designers design methods

and creative thinking. The actual term design thinking might not have been

used in such specic way, but the subjects around design thinking (methods,

creativity, prototyping, user-centricity, to mention few) have been discussed

greatly with different terms until the business community began to use the

term design thinking again within their own context.The problem with design thinking is that it is difcult to explain and people

understand it differently. Even though there are commonly understood

features in design thinking, there is no coherent meaning for the term. One of

the main problems is that design discourse understands the term and concept

of design thinking in a distinctive way than the business and management

discourse does. In the following chapter, the aim is to emphasize on the

inconsistency of the term and concept design thinking.

4.1. Design thinking as action

A second wave112of design thinking discussion began over a decade ago in

the mid 2000s with a different tone of voice than how it had been discussed

before in the rst wave, mainly within the design discourse. What is incommon with the literature from the rst and the second wave is that in both

there is a fairly notable amount of focus on design methods and processes.

Clearly design thinking is very much related to design action, already emphasized

in chapter two. When looking for support for this claim it was fundamental

to try different sources outside of the typical academic and popular literature,

112 Interview with Snelders, 2012


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blog posts and online articl

Design Thinking as Phenomenon

Documents

Transcript of Design Thinking as Phenomenon